GRAPEVINE, Texas \u2014 As Air Force leaders are working to improve the readiness of squadrons throughout the service, the Air Force\u2019s top civilian says the goal is to get 204 of the service\u2019s 312 operational squadrons to 80 percent readiness by 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis plan will accelerate readiness recovery of those units by six years. This is the difference between focussing our resources on where it matters most and peanut butter spreading readiness money we\u2019ve received across the entire workforce at the same time\u201d, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told the audience at the Airlift Tanker Association\u2019s annual symposium outside Dallas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have to reorient ourselves, our readiness, our presentation of forces, our training, to be prepared for the great power competition we face. And if we are there, the likelihood that we will have to fight will go down”, she went on to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for what 204 units are being prioritized, Wilson said they were units that are \u201cmost relevant to the high-end fight\u201d, and that the remaining 108 of the service\u2019s 312 squadrons would reach the readiness goal by 2023. It is likely those units will include the Air Force\u2019s fourth and fifth-generation fighter, bomber, and C4ISR squadrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Wilson did not identify in her speech exactly which units were selected for readiness improvements, she did say that the Air Force had perhaps become too \u201cused to\u201d low readiness, mostly due to budget issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYears of shortages of parts and budgets that were inadequate, I think have made us a little bit accepting, perhaps too accepting and complacent. We\u2019ve come to think that maybe its OK to have mission capable rates that are constrained by what we can afford. Its not. It is not OK\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wilson added that as maintenance funds go up, the Air Force has to change their attitude towards readiness, and that it would be a team effort across the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll of us have to find a pathway back from crowdsourcing and cannibalizing the United States Air Force located here in the continental United States and rolling forward 10 or 20 percent of our people in onesies and twosies onto mature infrastructure in the Middle East, to fight with exquisite command and control in a place where we have air superiority.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s important to note that funding increases are dependent on whether or not the Air Force stays funded at the level it is in FY2019. On Oct. 20, President Trump said the Pentagon\u2019s 2020 budget would \u201cprobably\u201d be $700 billion, as part of a plan to cut the spending at all federal departments by 5 percent. However, depending on which party controls Congress, that number could go up or down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson says the Air Force is planning to get 204 of the service\u2019s 312 operational squadrons to 80 percent readiness by 2020, with the rest hitting that mark in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":50602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":77,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"4":{"categories":["your-air-force","news","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":"your-air-force"}}},"categories":[7,77,160,29,162,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3217],"class_list":["post-44404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-air","category-airlift-tanker-annual","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-digital-show-daily","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"ID3P6PL6EVFU5NBLGFURKHVWNM","arc_canonical_url":"\/digital-show-dailies\/airlift-tanker-annual\/2018\/10\/26\/air-force-targeting-certain-squadrons-to-improve-readiness\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n